Defaulting To JDK 1.6 In NetBeans 6.5 On OSX

We try to stay current with our technologies at Point2. An example of this is using the most recent Java platform, Java 6 (JDK 1.6) and modern IDEs such as NetBeans 6.5. However, staying up to date with technology is not always as simple as it could be. Java 6 was released in December 2006 and NetBeans 6.5 was released almost 2 years later in November 2008 and yet it still wants to use Java 5 (JDK 1.5) as the default Java Platform, regardless of what you have set in the OSX Java preferences. Here is how you can set NetBeans 6.5 to use JDK 1.6 by default.

Ensure that JDK 1.6 and NetBeans 6.5 are installed

Locate the NetBeans config file, typically located at “/Applications/NetBeans/NetBeans 6.5.app/Contents/Resources/NetBeans/etc/netbeans.conf” and open the file in your favourite editor

Set the “netbeans_jdkhome” parameter to the JDK 1.6 home directory (ie. netbeans_jdkhome=
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6/Home)

In NetBeans, right click on the project in the project window and select “Properties”

Thanks for this,
Being a OS X noob though, it took me a while to find out I needed to CRTL-Click on /Applications/Netbeans/Netbeans 6.5.app and choose “Show Package Contents” in order to get to the rest of the path Contents/Resources/Netbeans/etc/netbeans.conf

* Open the “asenv.conf” file. In my case, it can be found at: /Applications/NetBeans/glassfish-v2ur2/config/asenv.conf
* Set the “AS_JAVA” parameter to the Java 1.6 directory. My entry reads:
AS_JAVA=”/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6.0/Home”

dgp2

April 20, 2009 at 11:46 AM

Thanks Hugh for the great comment. A co-worker was trying to get glassfish to use 1.6, which also uses 1.5 by default, and what you said is exactly what is needed to get it working! Thanks again.

Bharat Manocha

May 18, 2009 at 11:50 PM

thanks for info 😉 i had lost lots of time before visiting this link. it’s really worthful (:-)

David Ferrero

August 11, 2009 at 8:43 AM

My main interest was to debug an application running with JDK 1.6 from within NetBeans. But the Project–>Properties–>Java Sources Classpath : Java Platform never displayed JDK 1.6 as a choice even though I have 1.6 installed and even though OS X Java Preferences was set to default to JDK 1.6.

Obvious now, but I simply clicked Manage Java Platforms –> Add Platform and navigated to JDK 1.6.0/Home then added the src.jar and docs.jar and bingo – I am now able to debug my application spawned with Ant from JDK 1.6 from within NetBeans running with JDK 1.5.

Nathan

August 20, 2009 at 2:58 PM

Finally! Thanks god for you buddy.. was a breeze after going through your blog.. good stuff.